AHA, Health Organizations Urge Congress to Bolster Children’s Hospitals GME Funding

Improve Children’s Access to Care:
Increase Funding for the Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) Program

Dear Chairman Murray, Ranking Member Blunt, Chairman DeLauro and Ranking Member Cole:

The Children’s Hospitals Graduate Medical Education (CHGME) program is a vital investment in strengthening the pediatric workforce and access to care for children. As groups dedicated to protecting and advancing the health of America’s children, we thank you for your longstanding bipartisan support of CHGME and ask you to provide $718.8 million in FY 2023 funding for the program.

Due to a long history of bipartisan support and leadership, Congress has provided strong support for the training of pediatric medical residents through the CHGME program. CHGME helps fund programs that train pediatricians and pediatric sub-specialists, including the training of residents in pediatric dentistry and pediatric psychology. To ensure we can continue to take care of our nation’s children, especially during the current mental health crisis, CHGME funding needs to be better aligned with the funding provided to other types of provider training programs.

Currently, CHGME:

• Supports the training of about half the nation’s pediatricians and the majority of pediatric specialists.
• Represents just 2% of total federal spending on graduate medical education (GME).

We are grateful for your work to include $375 million (the highest level ever) in the FY 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act as that gets the CHGME program closer to alignment with funding through other provider training programs; however, more support is needed to help our pediatric patients now and into the future.

Alarmingly, the funding for CHGME training programs:

• Is only about half of the federal funding the Medicare GME program receives—$79,813 per pediatric resident compared to $156,128 per resident trained with support from Medicare GME.
• Will decline to 46% of Medicare GME by 2026 if action is not taken.

Boosting support for the pediatric workforce is even more important as we face the growing challenges of the children’s mental health crisis and the impacts of COVID-19 on children and our pediatric health care workforce. CHGME supports the training of the front-line providers who are caring for our children and youth during these emergencies. We cannot continue to fall behind—we must protect children’s access to care.

CHGME is a critical investment in our country’s medical future to ensure children will have the care they need across provider settings. Again, thank you for your continued leadership in investing in the health care of all children and we urge strong support for the CHGME program with $718.8 million for FY 2023.

Sincerely,

Academic Pediatric Association

America's Essential Hospitals
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus
American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
American Hospital Association
American Pediatric Society
American Psychological Association
Association of American Medical Colleges
Association of Medical School Pediatric Department Chairs
Children’s Hospital Association
Eating Disorders Coalition for Research, Policy & Action
Exceptional Families of the Military
Family Voices
Federation of American Hospitals
First Focus Campaign for Children
National Association for Children's Behavioral Health
National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners
National League for Nursing
Pediatric Policy Council
Premier healthcare alliance REDC Consortium
School-Based Health Alliance
Society for Pediatric Research
The Catholic Health Association of the United States
Tricare for Kids Coalition
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